1 00:00:00,480 --> 00:00:07,679 Hello and welcome to Gardening with Ben, the award winning gardening podcast as voted 2 00:00:07,719 --> 00:00:11,679 for by the Grow your Own magazine and buy my followers and buy my listeners. 3 00:00:12,240 --> 00:00:16,039 I hope that you have all clicked that subscribe button. If you're us 4 00:00:16,120 --> 00:00:19,359 to the podcast channel, please do click the subscribe button and then you get 5 00:00:19,399 --> 00:00:24,359 notified of all the new podcasts that get launched. And if you're not following 6 00:00:24,359 --> 00:00:29,719 me on Facebook, Instagram, YouTube, and TikTok, make sure you look 7 00:00:29,760 --> 00:00:34,280 for Gardening with Ben and follow me on all my social media's. So sit 8 00:00:34,359 --> 00:00:40,159 back, relaxed, grab a boot, and let's enjoy today's Gardening Podcast with 9 00:00:40,439 --> 00:00:47,159 Ben. Hello, and welcome to Gardening with Ben, the show where we 10 00:00:47,280 --> 00:00:51,600 dig deep into the world of gardening and allotments. As the year comes to 11 00:00:51,640 --> 00:00:56,399 a close, it's the perfect time to reflect on our gardening journey. Today 12 00:00:56,439 --> 00:01:00,960 will reminisce about the seats of knowledge we've planted, the challenge we've weathered, 13 00:01:00,240 --> 00:01:06,120 and the bountiful harvest we've enjoyed. From the first sprouts off spring to the 14 00:01:06,200 --> 00:01:11,400 last leaves of autumn, We've nurtured our gardens and in turn, they've nurtured 15 00:01:11,519 --> 00:01:15,680 us. So grab your favorite gardening gloves settle in. Let's explore the growth, 16 00:01:15,799 --> 00:01:21,200 the learning, and the joy this year has brought to our green spaces. 17 00:01:21,560 --> 00:01:26,000 This is gardening with Ben, where every day is a good day to 18 00:01:26,040 --> 00:01:32,200 grow. So that is it. It's the thirty first of December. It's 19 00:01:32,319 --> 00:01:36,840 the end of the year now, and as our year draws to an end, 20 00:01:37,359 --> 00:01:42,359 I'd just like to thank everybody that does support me through all of my 21 00:01:42,480 --> 00:01:49,719 social media platforms, through Facebook, Instagram, TikTok and these podcasts. However, 22 00:01:49,840 --> 00:01:53,560 when I've looked at how many podcasts I've recorded this year, I have 23 00:01:53,760 --> 00:02:01,879 recorded very little and I do apologize for that because I do like to keep 24 00:02:02,359 --> 00:02:06,680 the podcast going and I've done a rubbish job this year, so I do 25 00:02:06,879 --> 00:02:10,240 only apologize for that. But we're planning on doing some good ones this year, 26 00:02:10,680 --> 00:02:15,080 so make sure you do hit that subscribe button and we keep you up 27 00:02:15,080 --> 00:02:21,639 to date with all our podcasts. And also I have had twenty two thousand 28 00:02:21,680 --> 00:02:25,319 downloads this year, so you can't say it's not doing bad. Still, 29 00:02:25,400 --> 00:02:30,599 people are still listening to the podcast, so thank you to everybody that does 30 00:02:30,759 --> 00:02:34,199 listen to them. And if he new here, make sure you do give 31 00:02:34,240 --> 00:02:38,280 my Instagram a follow and drop me a message and let me know that you're 32 00:02:38,280 --> 00:02:42,199 listening to this podcast, as I do like to hear from the people that 33 00:02:42,360 --> 00:02:47,639 listen to them. And yeah, so this episode is called reflecting on a 34 00:02:47,719 --> 00:02:53,360 year in gardening and what a year we have had at the plot and it's 35 00:02:53,360 --> 00:02:58,960 not been a good year. Honestly, it's not been a brilliant year whatsoever. 36 00:02:59,560 --> 00:03:07,439 Down the allotment and the reason why that goes to happen is because I've 37 00:03:07,080 --> 00:03:12,280 not put as much effort in as I would like to have done. One 38 00:03:12,280 --> 00:03:16,199 of the main reasons for this goes down to not having my shed to grow 39 00:03:16,240 --> 00:03:23,439 my seeds in this year. As like I said, my shed collapsed last 40 00:03:23,520 --> 00:03:29,800 year the end of winter and I didn't manage to get rebuilt in time ready 41 00:03:29,840 --> 00:03:34,520 for the springtime, and so I didn't have anywhere to grow all my seeds 42 00:03:34,560 --> 00:03:38,520 in, which is the main big factor in growing stuff on my plot, 43 00:03:38,879 --> 00:03:43,639 as obviously I've got my polytunnel. But when I grow stuff on the ground 44 00:03:43,639 --> 00:03:46,800 in the polytunnel, all the rats come in, the all the seeds, 45 00:03:46,800 --> 00:03:49,879 all the squirrels come in, and the mice and everything, and they just 46 00:03:49,960 --> 00:03:53,240 nibble at them, whereas if they're in my shed. They're on the shelving 47 00:03:53,400 --> 00:03:57,520 out of the way where the rats can't get hold of them. So that 48 00:03:57,599 --> 00:04:00,759 was one of the main factors why I didn't managed to grow much stuff this 49 00:04:00,919 --> 00:04:05,759 year, because I didn't have an area to start all the seeds off growing. 50 00:04:06,400 --> 00:04:12,560 So one of the things I had to do was by plants that i'd 51 00:04:12,599 --> 00:04:20,639 already started from hot garden centers and shops. But obviously they're expensive, so 52 00:04:20,720 --> 00:04:25,720 I didn't get to buy and purchase many at those. But the ones that 53 00:04:25,759 --> 00:04:29,399 I did purchase did grow well. We got some good lettuce, we've got 54 00:04:29,399 --> 00:04:33,720 some good beetroot growing, and yeah, we got some decent results from the 55 00:04:33,720 --> 00:04:39,839 stuff that we did grow. But I didn't manage to grow much at all 56 00:04:40,480 --> 00:04:44,920 this year in them terms. But on the fruit side of things, I 57 00:04:44,959 --> 00:04:47,879 did manage to grow quite a lot. We've got a lot of fruit growing 58 00:04:48,120 --> 00:04:58,240 down at the plot as obviously, I've got my fruit trees growing with all 59 00:04:58,279 --> 00:05:00,519 them fruits. I've got my apple, I've got my plums, I've got 60 00:05:00,519 --> 00:05:04,720 my pears, we've got a strawberries, we've got blackberries, we've got some 61 00:05:04,959 --> 00:05:12,160 raspberries, and they did absolutely fantastic. The amount of pears I had this 62 00:05:12,319 --> 00:05:15,560 year, and the apples I did absolutely fantastic. I didn't get many cooking 63 00:05:15,560 --> 00:05:20,319 apples this year, but hopefully, fingers crossed, we do get a lot 64 00:05:20,319 --> 00:05:25,160 of cooking apples next year. But we have given the trees a massive chop 65 00:05:25,279 --> 00:05:29,199 back because they were getting too tall. So we'll see. We'll see if 66 00:05:29,199 --> 00:05:31,279 we managed to get some. Fingers crossed we do, even if we get 67 00:05:31,279 --> 00:05:35,040 about ten to fifteen, I'll be happy with that. It'll make me plenty 68 00:05:35,120 --> 00:05:42,199 of apple crumbles this week. I don't do the cooking. I always give 69 00:05:42,240 --> 00:05:46,040 the apples to my mum and the rhubarb, and she does all my cooking 70 00:05:46,120 --> 00:05:49,839 for me, which you don't mind. She likes making them so and I 71 00:05:49,959 --> 00:05:54,800 just stick them in my freezer and then eat them with hot custard as you 72 00:05:54,839 --> 00:06:01,600 would do. So yeah, that's what we've done with the food this year, 73 00:06:02,120 --> 00:06:06,639 and fingers crossed, we do get a lot of stuff growing next year. 74 00:06:08,120 --> 00:06:12,040 I've got a lot of big plans for down at my plot. I 75 00:06:12,079 --> 00:06:15,319 want to get back into it. This last year, I've not done much 76 00:06:15,480 --> 00:06:20,399 down there at all. This year. I didn't grow any pumpkins, I 77 00:06:20,439 --> 00:06:25,439 didn't get any cor shets growing. I didn't get no marrows growing. I 78 00:06:25,480 --> 00:06:29,560 didn't have no squash growing. Oh, I had sweet corn. We did 79 00:06:29,680 --> 00:06:34,720 fantastic with the sweet corn. The sweet corn was absolutely fantastic. And also 80 00:06:34,839 --> 00:06:40,800 now I've got an air fire at home, so I cooked my sweet corn 81 00:06:40,879 --> 00:06:45,720 in the airfy and wow, did it taste phenomenal or what? It was 82 00:06:45,920 --> 00:06:51,240 absolutely delicious. The sweet corn was beautiful and I'll definitely be growing a lot 83 00:06:51,240 --> 00:06:55,920 more sweet corn again next year. Sweet Corn is one of the things that 84 00:06:56,000 --> 00:06:59,800 I always do plan on growing, and we have a lot of trouble with 85 00:07:00,000 --> 00:07:04,560 whirls down at the allotment. And one of the tips that I always give 86 00:07:04,600 --> 00:07:10,839 out for the sweet corn is that when it's getting ready is to put plastic 87 00:07:10,920 --> 00:07:15,120 bottles over the tops of the corn to stop the rats and squirrels from eating 88 00:07:15,160 --> 00:07:19,759 them. And that gave me one hundred percent success rate of none of them 89 00:07:19,879 --> 00:07:26,079 getting eaten by animals. Other people on the plot had their stripped, they 90 00:07:26,079 --> 00:07:29,600 had them eaten, they had them knowed away and stuff like that, whereas 91 00:07:29,680 --> 00:07:35,199 all mine all grew fantastic and we had a fantastic crop outcome. So if 92 00:07:35,199 --> 00:07:40,160 you have any squirrels or rat issues, put a bottle over the top of 93 00:07:40,199 --> 00:07:44,319 the corn when they nearly ready, and you will protect them because the students 94 00:07:44,360 --> 00:07:47,240 start to smell ready, the rats and the squirrels will come along and eat 95 00:07:47,279 --> 00:07:51,480 them all. And even if you think I order it tomorrow, they I've 96 00:07:51,480 --> 00:07:58,759 done that before and next day they've all been stripped and I've lost every sweet 97 00:07:58,800 --> 00:08:05,800 corn cob soever. So yeah, that is my sweet corn. That was 98 00:08:05,839 --> 00:08:11,759 fantastic, absolutely, So we want to get back to growing more stuff again 99 00:08:11,800 --> 00:08:16,759 next year, so I'll talk about that in my next episode my plans for 100 00:08:18,079 --> 00:08:22,079 next year, so make sure you stay tuned for that one. Hopefully that 101 00:08:22,120 --> 00:08:24,920 one will be coming tomorrow. Hopefully we'll get recorded for you to listen to. 102 00:08:26,560 --> 00:08:30,199 As I say, I'm going to start getting these podcasts published quite regularly 103 00:08:30,240 --> 00:08:33,840 again and get them back out for you to listen to, because I do 104 00:08:33,000 --> 00:08:37,279 know people do miss them and they do like them. I'm surprised how much 105 00:08:37,399 --> 00:08:41,919 people do like me waffling on and talking to you all about People enjoy it 106 00:08:41,960 --> 00:08:50,759 while they're gardening. So overall the last year has been absolutely rubbished down at 107 00:08:50,799 --> 00:08:58,639 my Apart from fruit, which was absolutely fantastic, I have got some issues 108 00:08:58,639 --> 00:09:05,200 from my polytunnel. We might have to replace the skin. I keep taping 109 00:09:05,200 --> 00:09:07,480 it up, keep taping it up, but the tape keeps coming off again 110 00:09:07,759 --> 00:09:11,559 when it gets really windy. And we're getting a lot of storms at the 111 00:09:11,600 --> 00:09:16,440 moment, and there's some mass storms on the way, so we've got to 112 00:09:16,440 --> 00:09:22,080 be prepared for them. But fingers crossed, we do get some good stuff 113 00:09:22,120 --> 00:09:26,320 growing in the polytunnel. I'm going to be growing with to marts again next 114 00:09:26,399 --> 00:09:33,399 year. Yes, I forgot to mens much Martars. My tomates did fantastic 115 00:09:33,480 --> 00:09:39,159 this year. I keep thinking of different things as I'm talking, but what 116 00:09:39,200 --> 00:09:41,840 we did with is tomatoes this year. Rather than buy the actual seats in 117 00:09:41,879 --> 00:09:46,720 the packets of seats, I thought, I know what, I'm going to 118 00:09:46,799 --> 00:09:50,279 go to the supermarket. I've seen it all over social media, people going 119 00:09:50,279 --> 00:09:54,440 to the supermarket starting the seeds off from tomatoes and getting fantastic crops. Whether 120 00:09:54,679 --> 00:09:58,879 it was just a clickbait thing, I don't know, but I tried. 121 00:10:00,519 --> 00:10:05,759 I got some punnet of mixed small tomatoes through a yellow, orange and red 122 00:10:07,080 --> 00:10:11,399 like cherry sized ones, and I'd seen rather than dry them out, just 123 00:10:11,480 --> 00:10:16,960 scoop the seeds straight out, put them in the soil and let them grow 124 00:10:16,159 --> 00:10:20,799 so that's what I did, and if by magic all of the seeds grew, 125 00:10:20,840 --> 00:10:26,519 I got absolutely tons of plants grown from the seed. They did fantastic, 126 00:10:28,600 --> 00:10:35,440 They grew really well, and the yellow ones tasted absolutely beautiful. So 127 00:10:35,519 --> 00:10:39,960 if you wanted to grow some tomatoes next year, go to Tesculars and get 128 00:10:39,279 --> 00:10:46,320 the multi pack of different variety of tomatoes they like the plumb ones, the 129 00:10:46,440 --> 00:10:50,120 yellow ones, the orange ones, and the red cherry ones, and just 130 00:10:50,200 --> 00:10:54,759 use some of them and scoop them out into some soil and start them growing. 131 00:10:54,799 --> 00:10:58,000 And I grew them all outside and didn't grown in the polytunnel because my 132 00:10:58,080 --> 00:11:03,919 polytunnel out of action last year. We grew them all outside and we had 133 00:11:03,919 --> 00:11:11,039 some fantastic results for them. They were just amazing, absolutely amazing. So 134 00:11:11,200 --> 00:11:16,720 I'm sticking to that trick next year. I might even try it with peppers. 135 00:11:16,240 --> 00:11:24,399 Rather than buying seeds from the soup from the shops for the peppers, 136 00:11:24,440 --> 00:11:26,960 I'm just going to buy pepper and scoop the seeds out and try it that 137 00:11:28,039 --> 00:11:31,120 way, because you get more seeds in a pepper than you do in a 138 00:11:31,159 --> 00:11:35,960 packet of seeds, which are more expensive. So we're going to try that 139 00:11:35,399 --> 00:11:39,000 so make sure you stay tuned fat and see how we get on. It's 140 00:11:39,000 --> 00:11:43,240 a lot cheaper buying the vegetable and taking the seeds out and doing it that 141 00:11:43,320 --> 00:11:52,279 way rather than actually buying the seed packets of seeds sometimes, so make sure 142 00:11:52,279 --> 00:11:56,360 you have a look and give that a try and see what you can do. 143 00:11:56,720 --> 00:12:01,159 See if if you can get stuff growing from seeds from the actual plants 144 00:12:01,200 --> 00:12:05,000 in the supermarkets. I don't know if I try it with cucumbers or not. 145 00:12:07,399 --> 00:12:11,720 I grew a market more variety of cucumbers rather than the telegraph ones usually, 146 00:12:11,080 --> 00:12:16,360 and they don't have the market more ones in the supermarkets, so we'll 147 00:12:16,360 --> 00:12:20,279 give them a missed probably. But yeah, I'm going to try a few 148 00:12:20,320 --> 00:12:24,840 different things from the supermarket, take the seeds out and try growing them from 149 00:12:24,840 --> 00:12:30,080 them, So make sure you stay tuned for that. And hopefully we're going 150 00:12:30,159 --> 00:12:33,639 to try some different varieties of stuff next year as well. So like I 151 00:12:33,639 --> 00:12:37,679 said, stay tuned for the next episode and we'll talk about that more in 152 00:12:37,759 --> 00:12:41,960 detail. I do need to get a seed catalog for to have a look 153 00:12:41,000 --> 00:12:46,159 at some things to try and grow, so make sure you click that subscribe 154 00:12:46,159 --> 00:12:52,799 button and then you'll get notified when new episodes come up, and yeah, 155 00:12:52,039 --> 00:12:56,399 thank you for tuning back again. I'm glad to be back doing these podcasts. 156 00:12:58,240 --> 00:13:01,279 I think we've had more podcasts the last few days that we have over 157 00:13:01,320 --> 00:13:07,840 the year. But yeah, let's try and get a lot of episodes out 158 00:13:07,879 --> 00:13:11,840 next year. Let's try and get this podcast channel back up and munny to 159 00:13:11,960 --> 00:13:16,440 how it used to be. And I know people used to love it. 160 00:13:16,960 --> 00:13:22,320 And I've got a new app now to give me ideas on suggestions for podcast 161 00:13:22,399 --> 00:13:26,360 ideas and stuff like that, which I've been using and I've been using it 162 00:13:26,399 --> 00:13:31,679 throughout the beginning bit of the podcast, if you've enjoyed that entrance but when 163 00:13:31,720 --> 00:13:37,679 I'm talking about the introduction. But yeah, hopefully we're going to get this 164 00:13:37,759 --> 00:13:43,120 podcast booming and lots of listeners in So if you've enjoyed it, please do 165 00:13:43,200 --> 00:13:48,360 click that subscribe button, send me a message on Instagram, and stay tuned. 166 00:13:48,840 --> 00:13:54,559 And until next time, remember keep smiling, keep shining, and keep 167 00:13:54,600 --> 00:14:01,840 Guardening with Ben. Everybody. Thank you for listening to they Gardening with Ben's 168 00:14:01,039 --> 00:14:05,799 podcast. I hope that you enjoyed it. If you haven't subscribed to this 169 00:14:05,879 --> 00:14:09,120 channel, please do click that subscribe button and feel free to share it as 170 00:14:09,159 --> 00:14:13,440 well on your Instagram stories. All you have to do if you're listening on 171 00:14:13,480 --> 00:14:16,919 Spotify is click the share button and you can share it straight to your Instagram 172 00:14:18,039 --> 00:14:22,679 story for all your followers to listen to and help build my listeners up as 173 00:14:22,720 --> 00:14:26,840 well and get more people listening to it. Feel free to check out all 174 00:14:26,879 --> 00:14:31,840 my social media's Facebook, Instagram, YouTube, and TikTok. Yes I'm on 175 00:14:31,879 --> 00:14:39,240 TikTok go check it out. Check out my Dancing Gardening with Ben and check 176 00:14:39,240 --> 00:14:43,240 out the link as well in the description of this podcast where you can check 177 00:14:43,240 --> 00:14:48,279 out my Gardening t shirt shop where I sell funny t shirts with all different 178 00:14:48,320 --> 00:14:52,480 funny logos and designs on and feel free to support me by purchasing one, 179 00:14:52,720 --> 00:14:58,480 and all the money obviously goes back into my allotment where I can share more 180 00:14:58,519 --> 00:15:01,960 gardening tips with you all. So until next time, remember keep smiling, 181 00:15:03,279 --> 00:15:07,279 keep gardening, and keep listening to Gardening with Ben's podcasts.